The Boy On the Overpass
by EternallyBrianKrakow
Summary: Tavros sees a boy jump from the I-94 overpass.


The boy on the overpass

Once when things got bad at home, you went for a walk in the middle of the night and you went to Carlsbrook overpass because you wanted to be alone there to think about dying. But when you got there you saw a boy sitting on the railing, sitting on the edge looking over like you had done so many times and you contemplated turning back but right before you did you saw him tip over and the sight of it stole the air from your lungs.

You rushed forward and you saw an interesting scene playing out for you there for you. So you've been thinking ever since you saw that. You've been thinking about overpasses and why you came to one in the first place, and you've been thinking about boys with dark hair and the way their blood collects in the cracks in the road like lines on a map to a destination for one.

Its safe to say you've been thinking about how bodies look crumpled into the folds of the earth and how cars skid to swerve out of the way. And when you're not thinking you dream a lot; you dream about how your body would look tucked into a road bed, your brains splattered on a tar pillow. oh how lucky that boy is and how lucky you could be if he hadn't beat you to it.

Once you dream about what you saw for the first time, you stop going on walks far from your house because you're scared you'll meet someone else like that boy on the overpass and this time there'll be room for you to go with him.

You see the summer that John from grade eight fell from the overpass was the summer that your father decides to spend more time at work and your mother sits on the porch in sun dresses with her legs open, slapping bugs away and drinking too many ice teas talking to you about feeling free. You think that if she's so free then why does she stare out of the window with that look on her face in the laundry room when your father is home as if she's trapped inside. Sometimes you think you'll ask her what it means and other times you don't want to know.

Your father likes his coffee a certain way in the morning and his beer waiting for him in a cool glass on a stone table near the television at night and those things are always done whether your mother wants to do them or not. The more you think about it though, you no longer remember what your mother liked a certain way that your father ever did for her. When you were very little you would lie in your bed down the hall from their room and frown because you didn't like the way "making love" sounded through the wall. You thought it sounded muffled like being trapped underwater but neither person is trying to get out.

When you ask your brother why, he glares at you and tells you to go to sleep. At night you have horrible nightmares about being in the backseat of a car that drives itself and its taking you away from your house but no one goes to comfort you like they used to when you were little and by the time you're ten Rufioh asks for his own room and gets it.

The summer that John from grade eight fell from the overpass your house becomes quiet, you don't remember much what love making sounds like through the wall and your brother is leaving for college in a few weeks so you don't want to bother him with these questions that you should know now by in grade six.

John's funeral procession goes by your house and you watch it from the porch, that where you decided that you hate funerals and you don't even want one.

Your father stops coming home at the end of June and your mother cries in her room at night to your nanny which sares you because your nanny died when you were very little. So by July you lock the doors tight when you got to bed so you wont see nanny's ghost. You tuck your mother in to bed because your father is a bastard but you don't know why, you just heard your mother say it.

One day your father came home, and he was quiet and looked very serious but he never looked at your mother. Your mother sat on the couch and she looked so small it was like the couch was smothering her into it and she was letting it.

Your father said "Tavros, we're going to get a divorce. And if you don't know what that is, well it means you're going to live here with her and I'll live at an apartment not too far from here. You can come to my place on weekends if you like. "

You didn't know it then, but that was the beginning of things getting bad for you.

Your father moved all of his things, and your father called your mother "her" instead of her name which made it easier for you to forget thats who she was. She doesnt say anything when he leaves, just folds the laundry and you want her to scream at him or throw something to get his attention but she watches him back out of the driveway in just a t shirt.

The first night your dad leaves, you actually miss him and you cry loudly in your room when you realize how lonely it was starting to get because all your mother does is play very old sad songs and takes a lot of baths.

To your suprise she gets out of the bath and yells " Why are you crying?" at the top of her lungs. You, scared too breathe whispers that you miss your dad, and she tells you to be quiet or she'll make you quiet.

So you do, you become so quiet you forget what your own voice sounds like and you still lock your door that night but now it's so _she_ wont come in.

You visit your dad's place and on the drive there you go under the overpass where John fell and imagine him in the backseat with you on the way there because you need a brother again and you think he will do.

Your father;s apartment smells like cigarettes and he just orders food instead of cooking any. Sometimes a woman calls him while you're eating cold pizza and he yells at her that he's "with his goddamn son." before hanging up.

Sleeping at your fathers house seems impossible and especially trying to sleep on the cramped black leather couch that sticks to your skin and makes you hot. Your father's girlfriend slips in the apartment at night when she thinks you're asleep and she goes into your fathers room. You have heard what love making sounds like up close now and you don;t like the way it makes your stomach feel; you lean over on the couch and throw up on the floor before falling asleep.

In the morning your father yells at you about throwing up on the floor and you tell him its because you couldnt find the bathroom in the dark when really its because you're tired of everything changing.

Every weekend after that your faher has to cancel last minute when you're already packed and waiting for him on the porch.

He waits until he knows you're on the porch waiting and then he calls your mother and cancels on you and your mother calls him a bastard on the phone and you know what it means now. A bastard is a father who stops loving you once he moved away from home and makes your mother cry.

The last weekend your dad cancelled on you, you tucked your mother into bed because she cries too much and you're starting to like her sad music. You wait until she's in bed and eat and eat everything in the kitchen until you puke it all back up because you feel empty and that's when you realized you had a problem.

By August you started to imagine that John lived at home with you, because with Rufioh gone to university and your dad busy you don't have anyone else. You talk to John in the bedroom with the door closed about all the pills your mom takes for a broken heart and you think you should start taking some too.

You tell imaginary John that if you had met him before the day on the overpass you would have asked him to be your big brother because he's not old enough to go away to university and leave you there with your mom like Rufioh.

On the first day of school everyones talking about John dying and how they say he just slipped and sometimes when they ask you if you knew the kid you smile when you shake your head because they don't know much. You don't think it matters that you never knew him in real life but you were the last person to see him so you feel special.

One day after school your mom catches you talking to John in your room alone and she says it's your fathers fault you've lost it and you agree because she's your mother and she wouldnt lie to you.

On Thursdays you see a doctor named Lalonde who doesnt mind if you don't talk when you sit in her office. She says how come if you're sad when you come there you don't cry and you say "Because if I'm not quiet, she'll make me quiet." and its not because she ever followed up on that promise but that it was the right combination of words to convince yourself that your tears mean literally nothing to anyone so why make yourself tired by shedding them.

By November your father calls your mother and tells her he refuses to pay for you to keep seeing doctor Lalonde and your mother calls him an asshole and you agree.

Rufioh comes home sometimes and eats like he's starving, you think university is more like a prison if he's that hungry when he comes back and when you say so he just laughs.

One night when Rufioh is home he goes in your room and bothers your things, asking you about what you've been doing and peeking at your oragami you learned how to make from a friend you once had at school named Aradia and you get mad at him for touching your things because they're all you have left of that friend.

He says your drawings are dumb kid stuff anyway and turns to leave and you tell him

"I don't care what you think because John's my brother and not you anymore." He doesnt talk to you again for the rest of the weekend and leaves early on monday without saying goodbye.

John's actual friends from school say a lot about him in the memorial wall they put up for him in the grade eight wing. After listening to them talking in the hallway you realize you don't know him at all and you wont imagine him as your brother anymore.

On the day you stop imagining John you are home alone and you crush all your oragami beause you're lonely. You are lonely and you need to break things to feel better again because that's what adults do.

You call your father and you tell him he's a bastard, but he probably doesnt understand you because you are crying and you tell him you love him and you miss him when you hang up.

You decide that you can take your mother's heartache medicine because she would want you to be happy too.

So you take it all and you lay on the porch even though its raining. Your nanny comes to sit with you and John comes too which doesnt make you feel better.

Your father comes to your house and he yells at you for taking medicine that's not for heartaches apparently.

Your mother yells at you for taking the medicine too, you are just glad they're agreeing on something so you smile the whole time in the hospital. Kids from your school tell everyone that you're going to die like John and you can handle disapointing them because maybe there isnt a road bed with tar pillows waiting for you like you had once hoped for.

After you get home from the hospital, your fathers comes over all the time to see how you;re doing and he called your mother by her name and she smiles with wet eyes when she looks at you because you think she loves you.

When you start crying because you're happy she doesn't yell at you and you take a deep breathe and tell them.

"I saw John jump from Carlsbrook overpass on I-94 at midnight, and I saw his blood and I wished I was him. Mom, I don't like sad music and I don't like that you talk to nanny even though she's dead. Dad, I hate your apartment and I don't really think you're a bastard." You say.

They're not mad that you told the truth and they say they understand. And that night you tell John he can leave because even though he's a great brother, he's not your brother.

Rufioh comes home more often and doesn't let you apoligize for saying you didn't want him to be your brother anymore.

The summer that John fell off the overpass, you grew up and you learned what a lot of things meant. You learned what depression is and divorce, you learned what lonely is and you did not die.

So you've been thinking about feeling free and what it means to drink tea out of washed out mayonaise jars with your mother on her good days. You've learned where the bathroom is in your fathers place and you have your own room there with thicker walls.

It's safe to say you don't think too much about brown haired boys on overpasses anymore no matter how sad you get and you think John might be okay with that.


End file.
